


The Unfortunate Shape Of Your Face

by divingforstones



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fever, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, M/M, Post S7, Unorthodox Nursing Practices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 05:52:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1458304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divingforstones/pseuds/divingforstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This just can’t be happening. And especially not now. Things have just been going so well. He can’t. It’s undignified. It’s ridiculous. He can’t have caught mumps from a toddler. It’s not <i>fair."</i></p><p>  Just as James is wondering if his hopes about Robbie might be reaching fruition, life throws a spanner in the works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to wendymr for the beta'ing and the input on this. And errors added by my tinkering with it since are most definitely mine.

 

“Want to get out of here for lunch?”

“Not hungry.” James really doesn’t feel like going outside. It seems to require an energy that has rather abruptly deserted him. It’s too hot already in the slowed-down midday torpor of the office and the sun is glaring off the window pane. “Think I might be getting the flu,” he admits.

Robbie narrows his eyes across at him. “A bit achy, are you, lad?”

“Possibly,” James allows.

Robbie’s look sharpens suddenly. “And one of these aches wouldn’t be in your jaw, would it?”

James says nothing.

They keep going in silence for a few minutes more, although James is finding that the words on his screen have an unfortunate tendency to slip out of focus. He lets himself pause for a moment and closes his eyes. He takes a couple of quiet deep breaths. But he belatedly takes in that the clicking of the keyboard across the office space had stopped when he stopped himself.

Robbie has appeared beside his desk, frowning down at him. He opens his mouth, then seems to think the better of it, gives a nod to himself and just departs before James can come up with anything to say. He’s not gone for lunch, not with that purpose in his step. James knows exactly where he’s gone. And why he failed to make proper eye contact with him first.

He gets up himself, but there’s nowhere to go. He moves over to the window to try and catch whatever breeze there might be. The air in the office is becoming stifling now.

His best hope is that there’s a body that they don’t know about yet, deep in the far reaches of Oxford, that has already summonsed her safely away from the building. Or that the incredibly amicable friendship that seems to have simply restored itself after Robbie and Laura gave their relationship a proper go—and then apparently gave up on it—does not extend to this. Can’t they be more bloody—awkward with each other? Like normal people? Just for today?

And it’s not Laura herself. Far from it. James has always truly liked her. Even at the most—difficult—parts of her fluctuating relationship with Robbie. No, it’s not her at all.  It’s what she’s about to find out.

Because just over two weeks ago, Lyn Lewis and the younger of her children, her year-old son, had been down for a weekend, and it had been—well, lovely, actually. James had, of course, been planning to step back from the usual weekend routine that had evolved over the past few months between him and Robbie, but it hadn’t worked out that way. At all. Matthew had been a bit fractious, though. And then Robbie had had a call from Lyn, soon after she got home.

This just can’t be happening. And especially not now. Things have just been going so well. He can’t. It’s undignified. It’s ridiculous. He can’t have caught mumps from a toddler. It’s not _fair._

There are two familiar sets of footsteps approaching down the corridor now. Two familiar voices, apparently engaged in an argument. And there’s still no fire escape in this office.

“James.” Laura makes a rueful grimace at him. “Robbie’s insisting that you—” She trails off a bit, apparently at the look on his face. James can already feel the worst of his most aloof expressions forming on his features. And Christ, his jaw _is_ sore.

“See, he doesn’t look right.” Robbie is obviously continuing to press a point that’s already become a slight bone of contention between them.

“Yes, wonderfully stringent diagnostic criteria,” Laura mutters back at him. “Don’t know why I wasted all those years refining my skills, actually studying medicine. Although—” She looks back at James now, frowning.

“Told you, he—”

“All right. It just seemed unlikely, James, that you’d managed to get to your age—” She stops again, purses her lips at him for a moment, and then glances back at Robbie.

“But wouldn’t he have had an injection against mumps?” Robbie asks her, frowning. James studies the view of the car park outside the window. Well, they hardly need _him_ here for this little conversation they’re having.

If he’d stuck to his intentions and resigned two years ago, this could all have been avoided. He could have avoided Robbie until he was over the worst of it. He might have been somewhere else entirely, he supposes. But what was he meant to do when his inspector blatantly failed to retire after all? Not be his sergeant? And most days he’s just glad that he stayed on. Most days.

“He’s too old to have been vaccinated for it, Robbie,” Laura says. “Didn’t you have mumps as a child, though, James? Have playmates who had it?”

“I thought I did. I really thought I did.” He’s suddenly uncertain now.

***

To Robbie’s relief, James had been quite confident that his unexpected exposure to the mumps wasn’t a problem for him. Robbie hadn’t really questioned that at the time. Now he’s suddenly seeing James’s apparently misplaced confidence in a whole new light.

He’s had no-one he can ask for sure, of course, since Matthew came down with it, Robbie knows that. But more tellingly, in James’s case, it turns out that he’s actually been thinking that he remembers having it as a young child—and he’s been wrong. Because James hasn’t had the sort of happy-go-lucky childhood that Robbie had, that’s for sure. He very obviously didn’t grow up in an easily affectionate atmosphere. One where the adults in his life would have talked about, and teased him about, and reminded him about, all the little events and stories from his early childhood as he grew older. Stories like the time that he got the mumps.

Well, Robbie might not remember exactly what injections his kids had had but he sure as hell remembers their illnesses. Even if Val had been the one doing the hands-on nursing. He feels, once again, that restless anger at James’s useless parents which may be completely unwarranted—they could both have died, after all. Or it may be completely bloody deserved. Hard to know. He sort of suspects that, with his mother, it’s the former, and his father the latter.

He registers that James has now gone as stiffly impassive as he always does whenever anyone gets within touching distance of the topic. He tries to telegraph with his eyes to Laura to lay off with the questions, but she’s not looking at him.

***

“Well, the worst complication to watch out for at your age is viral meningitis.” Laura stops and sends a sideways glance at Robbie. Yes, he’s now looking far more alarmed than James. They are so bloody predictable. James just looks—angry.

“So you know what to look out for there?” She addresses herself to Robbie, who gives her a nod. “It’s usually a less serious form of it, anyway,” she reassures him. Since James is barely listening to her. Well, there is another complication in a man of James’s age that he needs to be warned about. But she can text him about that later. She’s not inflicting that information on James right at this moment. She’s not at all happy with the situation here. She hadn’t realised that James wasn’t on board with getting her input when Robbie had shown up. Robbie had omitted that little detail. She should’ve known.

She sighs. “Come on, let me just have a look…or you can let your own GP check you out?” She doesn’t mean that to be a threat, she’s actually trying to give him a way out. Every fibre of his being seems to be resisting her intervention, after all. But Robbie, surprising her, jumps straight in.

“Your choice, lad,” he says firmly and she knows from his tone, just as James must, that the next step, if he refuses her, is that James will find himself en route to his doctor’s surgery.

James gives a small, defeated sigh. He seems to know what she’s asking to do, although he’s not in the least bit happy about it. He turns his head to face her and stares over her head at the wall. Evading Robbie’s looks of concern as well, no doubt. She brings her hands up to start feeling his glands.

***

“Seems like it.” Laura is looking up at him, quizzically now. James does his best to avoid her eyes. “Have a headache, do you?” she asks.

 “No.” James says evenly. Untruthfully. Addressing the wall.

“Yes, he bloody well does,” says Robbie, looking at him.

This is rapidly becoming intolerable. Laura seems to have concluded her painstaking examination of his glands at long last, but it’s Robbie she looks over at again. “Well, if I’m not wrong—”

“You could be,” James cuts in.

“Yes, but if I’m not—”

“You were last week,” James hears himself continue.

 _“James.”_ Robbie’s voice is appalled. James is rather horrified at himself.

Last week Laura, very unusually, had made an error in a post-mortem and it had sent them in the wrong direction. Last week the perpetrator had subsequently nearly caught another victim before they'd realised that it had been him the first time after all. No-one is more acutely aware of that than Laura.

“Sorry,” James says rapidly now, “sorry, sorry.” He feels curiously close to tears. Laura is eyeing him.

“Head hurts that much, does it?” she asks neutrally.  But it doesn’t, really. It’s just—

“Why don’t you go and make him a tea, Robbie,” she suggests now, still not removing her considering gaze from James’s face. He can’t meet her eyes.

“Doesn’t deserve a tea,” he hears Robbie mutter, as he departs, nevertheless, shutting the door quite sharply behind him.

“Better?” asks Laura, into the sudden silence of the office.

“ _Sorry_ ,” is all James can think to say again, “I didn’t mean it. I don’t even think it. I mess up on cases all the time—”

“No, you don’t. But I shouldn’t have made you agree to be examined in front of him, should I?”

He looks at her properly. She opens her eyes a little wider at him. He suddenly feels even more exposed. Christ, does she _know?_ The only way he can see to avoid revealing one impossible truth is to admit to another lesser one.

“You were looking at each other like I was a child,” he murmurs. “I can’t believe I’ve got a _toddler’s_ disease.”

“No, we weren’t, that’s all in your own sore, paranoid head. He doesn’t, James.  He really doesn’t. He’s just worried. I was looking at him because you weren’t responding to me. You were possibly less forthcoming than my usual patients. And because he wants to be the one to help you with this. And mumps isn’t at all a toddler’s disease…”

***

Laura stops talking. James is obviously barely listening again. And he doesn’t look convinced by her words. He’s caused himself further distress now by losing his temper with her. He’s gazing out the window and he’s too tall for her to make eye contact with, if he really doesn’t want to. It seems kindest to just give him a few minutes to himself.

She meets Robbie in the corridor, on his way back, still looking bothered, but carrying a cafeteria tray with three lidded cardboard cups.

“Piece of advice,” she says without preamble. “I wouldn’t compare his symptoms to your grandson’s recent bout. I’d act like there’s no connection. Even though there obviously is.” Robbie is completely bewildered, she can see.

“Any particular reason?” he asks eventually. She shrugs.

“Doctor’s orders?” she offers.

“He had an appointment to get his vaccine within the fortnight, you know,” Robbie explains. “Matthew.”

“It’s just bad luck, Robbie, it’s rare enough for children that young to even get it. But I doubt James is angry at your family for exposing him to it. He’s not blaming you.”

James just can’t seem to handle this happening right now. And his distress about this is somehow to do with Robbie’s view of him. Does that mean he really felt that he and Robbie were moving towards something at last? That Robbie was seeing him—differently? And he thinks that this has put that in jeopardy? They have been spending a great deal of time together recently; she’d picked up on that. Well, something definitely must have shifted between them if Robbie seems to feel so ready, so entitled almost, to simply assume care of James, just because he has the mumps.

Except that, if James is seeing this as threatening his fragile hopes, then they seem set up to clash. She wishes there was a better way to warn Robbie to tread carefully here. But she can’t. What if he still hasn’t figured out exactly what James’s hopes are? And if they are slowly crossing a line here, then she can’t drop a blunt narration of that on Robbie.

Robbie has other things on his mind. He shifts uncomfortably. “He wouldn’t have really meant it that way—what he said about last week.”

“I know that. I know James.” She looks at him. “So no need for you to be too hard on him either.”

“He’s not himself, I suppose,” Robbie suggests.

“Oh, yes, he is. Too much his bloody self. Just like you are. The pair of you. I despair at times.” She plucks a cup from his tray and retreats.

_***_

Robbie stares after her. Well, that made no sense at all. And that was his tea she’s just taken.

He continues back to his office, not looking forward to this at all. But the James that greets him is not the James that he was expecting. He’s gone back to sitting behind his desk and has his head bowed, massaging his temples hard with the fingertips of both hands.  As soon as he registers Robbie’s presence, he sits right back, meeting his eyes, ready to take what’s coming. Flushed and miserable and ill though he is, he’s just waiting for Robbie to have a right go.

And Robbie would have, mumps or no mumps. But it’s plain to him that there’s no need for it, after all. Because James is obviously quite bitterly sorry. And it was equally obvious from Laura’s reaction that she knows that and that James has managed to upset himself far more than her.

“Not like you,” he offers. He means it as an invitation. _Want to tell me what the hell that was about?_ But James apparently misunderstands because he just looks even more miserable. He swallows, with some difficulty, Robbie observes, and starts: “I –” But then that seems to be all he’s got. God, but they need to have a proper conversation, he and James. Can’t keep putting it off. Obviously not now, though. Forget the tea.

“Come on now. Home with you.” Although, come to think of it, once he’s sent James ahead of him, out to the car, he’ll need to try and catch Innocent for a quick word.

***

“Of course I meant my home.”  Robbie is getting frustrated. Once he’d pulled up outside James’s flat, he’d offered to go in himself and get whatever was needed for the next few days. The instant the car had stopped James had let his head slide down against the cool windowpane. He doesn’t look fit to go anywhere or organise anything.

“Look,” Robbie tries again. Best make it simple. “You don’t have a spare room. I do. Your couch, my back, I don’t really fancy it. So let me get your stuff. Set up camp at mine for the duration.”

“I don’t need a nurse.”

Robbie chuckles, his irritation dissipating. “I’ve been called many things in my time, lad, but no-one’s ever focused on my nursing skills. Think of me as an extra body around the place, someone to keep an eye.”

It’s a lot more casual than what he could really say: _Think of me however you want, James, but I’m not leaving you on your own._

“Text me if you come up with anything while I’m inside. Now, lift your head up.” Robbie lowers all the windows in the car. He’ll not be long but Christ, just looking at James makes Robbie feel hot.

He takes it that they’ve come to a consensus when his mobile buzzes minutes later. _Headphones in small drawer,_ he reads. He’s already got the iPod so he goes back to poke at its dock. Clever. Reminds him of the secret drawer in Val’s jewellery box. Robbie had hidden a necklace in there one year, for her birthday, all coiled up. Then he’d had to show her it was there, because, after all, why would she open a secret drawer in her jewellery box when getting ready to go out. He smiles at his own stupidity, remembering.

Tells him, though, too, what sort of a house guest James is planning to be. Making sure already that his music choices won’t disturb his host. More polite and considerate and reticent than he usually is when round at Robbie’s.

He usually casually sticks that iPod, with all the occasional strangeness of his music choices, straight into the thing in the top of Robbie’s stereo, to play something that he wants Robbie to hear while James flings himself down on the couch. Or makes himself at home in the kitchen.

He has a sudden picture of James in his kitchen last weekend, gently chiding Robbie for not chopping something in exactly the way it apparently should be chopped.

_Batons. Slim little batons. Like matchsticks. Not rounds._

_What am I, lad, your bloody sous-chef?_

James had been visibly torn between amusement and exasperation. He’d given an exaggeratedly patient sigh before he’d asked Robbie, straight-faced, if he’d ever bitten into a spring roll to find vegetables in rounds. Well…

It wasn’t Robbie’s idea to cook an entire takeaway from scratch, as he’d enjoyed persisting in describing James’s grand Thai-cooking project. But he had indeed been James’s sous-chef and had thoroughly enjoyed himself.

And now the lad is, for some reason best known to himself, embarrassed to be ill, resisting Robbie’s efforts to keep an eye on him, and practising consideration, bloody consideration about his music, thinks Robbie indignantly.

Robbie wants James back in his kitchen, bickering with him. He wants him nabbing beers from Robbie’s fridge and handing one to Robbie and throwing himself down on Robbie’s sofa like he owns it. He just wants him there, really, he’s become that used to relying on, and enjoying, James’s company in his flat. And he wants him—well, enough of that thought for now. Something else has suddenly occurred to him.

Has he pushed James into staying with him because that’s what he wants himself? When James is ill and obviously wanting to be left alone? Has Robbie forced him into this? He’s already uncomfortably aware that he may have been a bit heavy-handed this morning, getting Laura. Should’ve asked James first.

But he’d known that James would’ve refused. He’d been afraid that James, in all his ingrained self-sufficiency, was going to shut Robbie out, and struggle through this himself. And there’s no need for him to do that. No need at all.

Robbie simply doesn’t know what the right words are to convince James just how much he doesn’t need to struggle through everything on his own any more. He’s up against the habits of a lifetime in James, and his own difficulties and hesitations in expressing what he really wants here. That’s a tough combination even before throwing in the mumps.

And anyway, why’s James this bothered over the flaming mumps?

***

The rest of the day, rather to Robbie’s relief, doesn’t go so badly. James drowses rather restlessly on the couch while Robbie starts to plough through the paperwork their most recent case has generated. If James doesn’t wake for long, or eat much at dinner, well, at least he seems to let the habit of being here overwhelm him, and relaxes a bit.

Maybe he still feels at home in Robbie’s flat despite the situation. At least, that’s what Robbie hopes—that James can still somehow feel at home with Robbie himself despite feeling more vulnerable. It seems important that he does. And if James takes himself off to bed pretty early, that’s pretty understandable.  It gives Robbie the chance to consult Lyn and go out for provisions. He hadn’t exactly been anticipating having someone to stay with the mumps.

***

It’s not until the following morning that things take a sudden turn for the worse. Robbie has made a good start on the day before he hears sounds of stirring from his spare room. He’s beginning to realise that there’s certainly going to be more than enough paperwork to keep him going if James is going to be out of action for a bit.

When he goes to investigate, he realises why James hasn’t raised himself from the bed yet. The room betrays all the signs of a disturbed night. The window is open to its fullest extent, the duvet is in a tangle on the floor and James, in his light cotton pyjamas, has only a sheet over him. He’s lying back on the pillows on the narrow single bed, looking as if raising his head would be entirely too much for him.

And there’s something else that strikes Robbie immediately, summoning an involuntary grin to his face. “You look like a hamster. Half a hamster.”

James swallows. “Half a—”

“You're lopsided. More swollen on one side than the other. Trust you.” Robbie sends him a glance of pure affection. Then he abruptly stops smiling. “Hey.” Because from the blank expression that abruptly drops down on James’s face, he might as well have turned his back on Robbie. “James?” No response. Robbie badly wants to drop down on the side of the bed, take hold of James and somehow make that look lift from his face. That’s what he wants to do. But the stiffness that’s now pervading James’s whole posture is utterly forbidding.

“I’ll give you a minute,” Robbie says helplessly.

He stops when he gets to his kitchen. Well. That did not go well. Best give him longer than the minute. James could probably do with some breakfast, come to think of it. Because Robbie has an unwelcome feeling that James will not be emerging to join him any time soon.

When he returns, bearing a tray, James glances over at him but he certainly isn’t meeting Robbie’s eyes. _He’s furious,_ Robbie processes _._

“Didn’t mean to mock you there . Just…the unfortunate shape of your face, you know?” That’s an in-joke, a private joke. That’ll work. Ease the tension.

Silence.

“Well, I’ll leave you to rest. There’s tea in case you want something hot. And yoghurt in case you want something cold. And painkillers and water for your head there, take those either way, okay?”

“Got it. The tea is hot. The yoghurt is cold. Thanks for the information. Very helpful.”

 _Christ._ “Okay…” he says slowly. “Shout if you need anything?”

“Yeah. Thanks. For everything. Really. Thanks. Look, sir, I think I’ll just sleep so if you could just—” He’s struggling. Struggling to sound grateful. _If you could just get lost,_ is very clearly how James would have liked to finish his sentence. If he wasn’t staying in Robbie’s home. If Robbie wasn’t still his boss.

Robbie doesn’t think this is about being here, though. It seems to have been his comments.

***

Robbie makes little progress when he gets back to his case report. When he’d arranged to work from home for these few days, he’d more pictured James dozing on his couch. But it’s like the bloke wants to hide away. He doesn’t venture any further than the bathroom.

When Robbie hears the shower run for quite a while, he loses his focus entirely. At first, he’s rather concerned at the prospect of James keeling over, locked into the bathroom. He hadn’t really looked like he’d be able to stay upright too successfully. Then that vague worry is overtaken by a much more vivid distraction; thoughts of James in his shower. Thoroughly distracting thoughts. Then he’s got the further conflict of debating whether he’s got any rights to have such thoughts. He’d got to the point recently of thinking he could, he’d felt fairly sure that his feelings were reciprocated if either of them could just somehow—but right now James just seems to be in a right fury at him.

He tries to work it out.

He’d have thought James was going through nicotine withdrawal again, except that he hasn’t smoked in a year. Longest ever. Robbie would’ve known if he’d started up again. Memories of that last time, when James had made a sustained effort, and finally given up properly, are still quite vivid. _That_ had been a fun couple of weeks.

This isn’t the same as that, though. James isn’t that highly irritable, restless, agitated sergeant. That was actually more straightforward to deal with. Maintain a supportive silence, particularly about how inadvisable it might be to replace a nicotine addiction with an increased caffeine one. Largely let him, and the poor raw side of his thumb, alone, and—at times when he picked up that James would let him—a bit of coaxing, or encouragement, and the odd bit of straight talking. Lad had done well. No, this is not that. This is pure anger.

God, only James would actually take the mumps as a personal affront.

Robbie’s quite glad when the doorbell eventually pulls him out of his own thoughts. And then what he’s presented with gives him an excuse to desert his paltry attempts at work, busy himself with his microwave and go to check on the subject of all his ruminations. From one look at James, it’s fairly apparent that he hasn’t slept much in the interim, and it’s even more obvious that his mood hasn’t improved substantially, either. Robbie makes one more effort to ignore that.

“Look what Laura’s sent you.” He puts the bowl down carefully on the bedside table. “Homemade.” He stops himself from providing the helpfully obvious information that it’s hot chicken soup. Or commenting on the fact that James might want to have more of a go at eating it than the untouched breakfast.

But mention of Laura’s name only serves to remind James of what he’d said to her yesterday. “I wish she’d stop being so bloody _forgiving,”_ he mutters.

Robbie's suddenly had enough of this. “Want me to text her that, then?” he asks, pulling out his phone, “I will, you know, if you don’t snap out of it.”

A hand comes up and takes hold of his, phone and all. Then it just holds on. Robbie looks down at him. James looks back up, mutely. Robbie gives a sigh and settles down on the side of the bed.  James keeps hold of his hand.

“James. Come on. What’s wrong?” But he’s beginning to grasp now that it’s more the case that James can’t say rather than won’t. In fairness, he’s not the only one. Robbie’s got a few things he’s finding fairly impossible to voice himself at the moment. He feels his hand being released. James has switched his gaze to a fascinating spot on the wall beyond Robbie’s shoulder now. _All right._ _Not yet._

Robbie reaches for the bowl of soup and frowns thoughtfully into it. “Oh look, Laura cuts her carrots into rounds, so she does. Must tell her its _batons.”_ He leaves James to try and eat in peace. When he returns for the bowl, he can see that at least an attempt has been made.

“This is water,” he narrates, putting a fresh glass down. “And these are painkillers.” He gets a definite quirk of one side of James’s lips, in response.

***

Robbie is immersed in a particularly impenetrable budget form when he’s pulled out of his absorption by a rhythmic, muffled thumping sound. He frowns a moment, trying to place it. Then he realises that it’s coming from the spare room and rises quickly, heading down the hall.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, James! D’you think that’ll help your headache?” James is propped up against the wooden headboard, actually thumping his head back on it. Bloody hell. He’s the worst patient on the face of the earth.

James turns to face him. He looks flushed and agitated and a little wild-eyed. “I can’t _read.”_

“You—” Robbie shakes his head, trying to clear it. He could swear the bloke’s face looks even more stiffly swollen than this morning. Not that he’s about to mention that. But it does remind him he might have something to help here. “Hold on.”

When he returns with the warm flannel, he sits on the side of the bed and presses it gently to James’s jaw. James’s eyes widen. Then, as the warmth begins to take effect, he almost groans in relief. He submits to Robbie’s ministrations for one blessed minute. But then, being James, he has to go and ask questions. “How’d you know that’d help?” he mumbles as best he can.

Mindful of Laura’s advice—which he has been giving some serious consideration to—Robbie stops himself from explaining that he’d called Lyn, to see what she’d done for Matthew.

“Would you believe I googled it?” he offers hopefully.

“No,” says James briefly.

“I suppose I must’ve—sought medical advice.”  Well, Lyn is a nurse after all.

“You mean Laura?” James confirms, presumably wondering why Robbie is evading the question. Robbie really wishes he could nod.

“Not—exactly.”

And James has guessed, he can see. There’s a flash of anger in his eyes. Bugger. Without stopping to think the better of it, Robbie clambers straight over James’s legs and settles himself back against the headboard, right beside him on the narrow bed.

Then he sees that James is too tall for what he’d intended.

“Slide down,” he says. James has turned his head to stare at him. “Slide _down,_ ” he says again. When James does, still trying to keep his poor maligned face turned towards Robbie, Robbie puts up a hand and gently turns the other man’s head to face front. Then he applies pressure with his fingertips until James’s head falls back onto Robbie’s shoulder.

He shifts a little until James appears more comfortable, lying back, propped up on Robbie.

Then he picks up the flannel and starts his ministrations again. He can’t see James’s expression now, although he seems to be relaxing back into Robbie. But just so that there’s no doubt: “I’m not looking after you because you caught this from my grandson or because I feel sorry for you. I’m looking after you because you’re my James, and you’re ill, and beyond that, my intentions are entirely dishonourable.”

“What?”

“You heard. Now shut up and keep your jaw still for once in your life so I can do this properly. We’ll talk when you’re better, lad.”

He needn’t have worried. James has gone remarkably still. So Robbie holds the flannel to his face, and holds James with his other arm, against his own chest, and they sit in silence like that. For quite a while, until the warmth has almost gone from the flannel. Until he realises that James has actually dropped off. He cranes his neck to take a look. The faint lines of pain around his eyes seem to have smoothed out in sleep.

Somehow—and it must just be the difference between being awake, and so uncomfortable, and being peacefully asleep—well, somehow, James looks almost happy in his sleep.

Robbie’s not going to disturb him. He contorts slightly to lay the flannel on the bedside table, and reaches for James’s book. He’d packed it straight from James’s own bedside table yesterday afternoon without looking at it. He’s not holding out a great deal of hope, it must be said.

But it’s a travelogue. Robbie’s acutely aware it could have been worse. Far worse. Although he’s not sure he’s ever seen James with a travelogue over all the years, come to think of it. He peers at James’s sleeping face again, looking for answers, but they’re not forthcoming.

It proves to be quite funny in parts, with the conflicting descriptions by two travelling companions of each other, but he has to suppress any laughter so as not to wake his own awkward sod sleeping against him _._ And apart from that, it’s just a good book. Vivid descriptions, and it’s sucking Robbie in. Just as well, as it’s some time before James stirs.

James is not entirely with it. “Have you had mumps, sir?” he asks, slightly panicked, trying to twist his head to look at Robbie. “Are you sure?”

“Shush now, you know I have. Lie still there.” He doesn’t look reassured. Robbie sighs. “I’ll tell you. Me and me brother had it together. I was too young to remember at the time but it was one of our favourite stories. We liked hearing about it even when we got older—me mam used to always tell us. Used to joke that she’d cured us both of it by following her own mam’s advice and using the old folk remedy for mumps; of rubbing our heads to the back of a pig.”

He stops, confronted, not for the first time, with the obvious disparity between James’s childhood and his own. But James is distracted by something else entirely.

“But where would I get a pig?” he mumbles to himself fretfully as he drifts off again.

***

“Not your usual type of book?” Robbie’s almost caught up to the bookmark. James seems more orientated this time. He’s slid down a little further in his sleep and his head had been resting on Robbie’s chest by the time he woke again. He shuffles up a bit and tilts his head to blink up at Robbie.

“I wasn’t feeling great the last couple of days. It’s evocative. Escapism. Doesn’t need much concentration. Well, I thought it didn’t.” He’s looking frustrated. Reading itself is escapism for James, of course. No wonder the bloke took it out on the headboard.

“Want me to read it to you?”

Another chapter and a half and James drops off again. Best thing for him. Although Robbie had suspected that he was actually fighting off sleep for a bit there, from the sudden starts of his head against Robbie’s shoulder. He had just seemed so damn pleased to be read to.

Ridiculous as it is to stay in this position, when James should really be lying down flat on a cool pillow, not held up against a warm body, Robbie still doesn’t make a move. He kind of suspects from what he saw earlier that the comfort of what they’re doing here matters more to James than any practical nursing. And if Robbie has somehow found a way in which James can bring himself to accept a bit of comfort and caring, then he’ll stay like this all afternoon if that’s what it takes to get his message across.

The next time James wakes, Robbie is waiting. It’s occurred to him that James might find it easier to talk in this position, when he doesn’t have to meet Robbie’s eyes. Worth a try.

“Why d’you mind so much, James? About having the mumps, eh?”

He can’t for the life of him make out what the first thing is that James mutters, but the second part is definitely “…and looking like this, in front of _you_.”

“What, d’you think I just like you for your looks, man?”

“No, sir, I’m well aware you don’t _like me for my looks_.”

Oh, God. “James, I don’t mean it like that. You’re a good-looking lad, you’ve got to know that?”

That gets no response. Maybe he really doesn’t know. Robbie tries again. “Not just good looking, I mean I’d always like looking at you anyway, because you’re you, but—” He is no bloody good at this sort of thing at all. He moves his free hand up, from where it’s been resting on the mattress beside them.

His arm has been propping them up. So he has to shift a little underneath James as he adjusts their balance. He tightens his other arm across James’s chest as he does so, to let him know he’s not getting up. Not going anywhere. Then he brings a loose fist up to James’s temple, careful of that sore jaw, and begins to rub his knuckles back and forth a bit, massaging slowly, hopefully soothing. James’s head tilts a bit towards his hand, pressing against it. He seems to be seeking the extra touch.

“How can you not know?” Robbie mumbles eventually. “How can you not know what I think when I look at you?” But when he shifts just slightly to peer down at James, he can see that he’s waited too long. Because James is fast asleep again.  



	2. Chapter 2

Robbie had held him while he slept. James feels sated with the pure comfort of it. He’d been just held. With no expectations or demands made on James. Just held because Robbie had—wanted to do that? Every time he’d woken up, there was Robbie, right there, solid warmth amidst the aching heat of the fever and his headache. Holding him so securely and—well, it had somehow felt to James like he was being held—almost with tenderness. James had drifted off again each time, feeling safer in those arms than he could ever remember feeling before.

When he awoke that final time, Robbie had been waiting and had climbed out from under him as James had sat upright, properly coming to. “Sorry, lad,” Robbie had said, rather apologetically, “back’s complaining a bit.” But he hadn’t moved until James woke, despite that, hadn’t left him to wake alone and wondering why. James is aware that he could have become horribly accustomed to this holding in just one afternoon. It had felt entirely too natural and too right.

He doesn’t sleep further and he doesn’t read and he doesn’t care in the slightest. He just lies there, able for one evening of his life not to think quite so much, helped on presumably by the effects of the fever and the virus, just lying there and listening to music and eventually having a go at more of Laura’s soup. He wonders if she was concerned about him getting some proper nutrition. She must be well aware of Robbie’s limitations in the kitchen. Robbie, presumably catching up on the paperwork that would have been scheduled for the afternoon, comes in and out occasionally, giving him the odd grin, looks gratified at the attempt on the soup and leaves him to it, really. James is quite content.

So it’s not until after Robbie has done a final check on him, left him more painkillers for the headache, which has actually eased off a bit, and bid him goodnight, and the flat has descended into silence and darkness, that James removes his headphones and the day suddenly descends on him in an entirely different way altogether. It’s like the removal of Robbie’s presence from the space, as he presumably withdraws into sleep now, has left room for the doubts that plague James to come rushing back in.

He doesn’t know now if he’d imagined those words this afternoon. _You’re my James, and you’re ill, and beyond that, my intentions are entirely dishonourable._ Were they only born of fever and long-suppressed wishful thinking? He could have sworn he’d heard them. He really could. But then he could equally have sworn that he’d heard Robbie talking about pigs. Pigs.

He can’t stop thinking about what had happened when Lyn was here, that so-recent weekend. And God knows, James has already analysed what had happened that weekend to death, twisted and examined it and tried to make sense of it and in the end just done his very best to let it go. Tried not to let those long-suppressed hopes, where Robbie is concerned, rise to the surface, and threaten the ease between them. But his best efforts at letting it go weren’t very effective at the time. And now he just can’t stop.

James, so comfortably, happily used to spending weekends in Robbie’s company now, largely in this very flat, had nevertheless naturally intended to give Robbie space to enjoy his family. But then on the Sunday he’d found himself being persuaded to come over, by text. On the pretext that Robbie needed help with the roast that he was insisting on despite the weather. It had rapidly emerged, once James arrived, that that had been a ruse on Robbie’s part.

Robbie had led him through the flat, explaining that Lyn was fast asleep on the couch after a disturbed night with Matthew, and then cheerfully, and unrepentantly, kicked a rather alarmed James out into the garden because it turned out that he could well manage a roast himself now. Somewhat ironically, given that rather simpler feats of cooking still obviously elude him. But James had spent an exhausting, and surprisingly enjoyable, hour with a charming, demanding, somewhat fretful, often gleeful toddler.

He’d straightened up at one point, from their painstaking examination of a snail—toddlers progressing around gardens don’t take more than two steps at a time without getting distracted, it seemed—and he’d seen that Robbie was standing looking out the window, unashamedly staring at him. He hadn’t even stopped when James caught him. Just continued to look straight at him, unmoving, unsmiling, until James felt himself reddening under the heat of that gaze. Then there had been another tug on his hand from the smallest human being ever to stand upright, James is sure of it, and James had bent his own gaze to the snail again.

Right through dinner, with a sleepy, distracted but very grateful Lyn, Robbie had continued to send him that same considering look. More than considering. Something was definitely wrong. He’d looked a bit—upset, almost. As soon as Lyn had taken Matthew off for a nap and Robbie had risen to clear, James had picked up a random couple of glasses and followed him straight into the kitchen area. _What was this?_ Robbie had put down the plates and turned immediately.

“D’you want kids, James?” he’d asked abruptly.

“No.” James had been astonished. “Because I entertained your grandson for a bit?”

“You’d be good at it,” Robbie had said shortly.

“Thanks, I think.” Robbie was being so curt that James understood that somehow this mattered. It really mattered, even if it was coming out of the blue for James. He tried to explain further. “But it’s just not something that I’ve ever pictured for myself.” He found himself trying to gesture with a glass still in each hand.

“Because you really don’t want it or is this one of those things that you always think that other people get but it just won’t be on offer to you? You’re not closing down your options, settling for something less because you think that path’s not open to you at all?”

 _Where was this sudden psychoanalysis coming from?_ “I’ve just never had a strong desire—I was going to be a priest, remember?” he had assured the other man. And somehow that had seemed to do the trick. Robbie had given a nod and then he’d brought a hand up and caressed James’s cheek very gently.

Then he was gone, right out of the room, before an astonished James could begin to process it.

He’s certainly processing it now.

There isn’t one cool spot left on this pillow, one breath of a breeze in this airless room. It’s just too hard being here, and fighting down his hopes, and Robbie looking after him, and the effort it will take to try, so hard, not to let himself get used to that, he shouldn’t get used to that when it’s only because he’s sick and all this care and gentleness, it’s all a facsimile, really, a diluted, weaker version of what James really wants Robbie to feel. It may feel right and like—well, like everything James has ever wanted—but then it’s going to end, isn’t it?

Looking at it one way, that strangely intense conversation in Robbie’s kitchen, followed by that caress, makes no sense. Looking at it another way, it makes a great deal of sense. Well, it makes sense only if Robbie actually wants a relationship—but James just isn’t sure if he’s deluding himself to even think that that could be the explanation here.

It puts all James’s anxieties about how Robbie sees him into perspective, though, that’s for sure, if Robbie’s attitude to James’s relative youth is to worry about something so fundamental. Something so fundamental and so—completely irrelevant. James should really put Robbie's mind at rest—but then it’s probably not what Robbie meant at all. And James would just make a fool of himself if he tried to clarify the issue, wouldn’t he? Christ, he’s making his headache come back in full force. Maybe now is the time to go home. He could walk. Get outside where there’s cool air. He could leave a note. He knows he can’t, really, but it is just so miserably, inescapably hot in here.

And then, almost as if James had actually called out to him in his distress, there’s a sudden movement of James’s own body on the mattress as someone sits down on the side of the bed, and there’s a hand on his shoulder, turning him to face Robbie in the shadowy light.

“Come into my room,” Robbie says, “come on, now. It’s cooler.”

It is. It must be in a different climate zone altogether. It feels blessedly, blissfully cool lying in Robbie’s bed, on Robbie’s sheets, that are faintly impregnated with Robbie’s own indefinable scent. The room seems darker and cooler, the breeze through the open window seems stronger, the curtains are open, and somehow even the stars are brighter in the dark sky.

It’s such a contrast with his own fevered imaginings in the spare room that James feels slightly dazed. He settles on his back and looks at the stars and presses his head back into the pillow to steady himself.

Then he feels Robbie settle beside him on the bed and one cool sheet comes up over both of them.

James is lightheaded, dizzy. The stars keep pulsing closer. He doesn’t think it’s anything to do with the fever. He thinks it’s the blessed relief of being in Robbie’s bed, of not having to fight the ceaseless fight of years—don’t let him see, don’t touch him too long, hold back a bit more, just joke back—for once, just once, here in the cool darkness, he’s going to let himself lie here and exult in all the sensations, fully live a moment while he’s got it and leave all the analysis and self-recrimination until later. Just this once. He’s dizzy with the pure powerfulness of it all.

“My heart aches,” he murmurs, “and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk…”

“I’m pretty sure Laura didn’t put any hemlock in your soup, so you must be feeling better if you’re in a quoting mood.” Robbie’s tone is dry but there’s that underlying tone of amusement that James seeks.

“Much, much better,” James murmurs, suddenly sure that it must be true.

“And what’s your heart doing aching, lad?” Robbie asks very softly. James is the only person in the world who can hear that voice just now. Its tones are just for him, just chosen for and aimed at him. Here in the dark, just the two of them cocooned, and all the bright stars watching. “I thought it was your head that was hurting. Can’t leave you to your own devices for more than five minutes at the moment, can I? Or you start tormenting yourself again.”

And then James feels the balance of his own body shift and rebalance on the mattress once more, in response to Robbie’s movement, as Robbie edges closer and an arm works its way under James’s neck. James lies very still. “Go to sleep,” says Robbie still in that gentle voice. And it must have worked some magic on James because, obediently, he just lets go and spirals on down into that dizzy all-encompassing darkness, lying anchored by Robbie’s arm.

***

Over breakfast the next morning in his silent flat, having left James to sleep further in his bed, Robbie resolves that he’s going to stop seeking nursing advice from either Lyn or Laura. He reckons he’s muddling both James and himself through this just fine now, with his own unorthodox methods.

And looking after someone like James who has that much trouble handling being looked after—Robbie doesn’t think they teach you that in medical training. So Robbie’s going to resort to listening to his instincts, instincts honed by years of having James beside him. Although the very notion of James being beside him has come to mean something pretty different after last night.

Lying in bed with James falling asleep next to him—that had felt bloody marvellous. It couldn’t have been too long after James had surrendered to sleep that Robbie, too, must have drowsed off. But he’d woken a few times in the night, to the sound of that rather rapid, but still steady, breathing, and he’d been hit by the realisation that it was James there. Right there.

On one occasion, as he’d automatically raised his hand to the sleeping lad’s forehead, in his instinctive check that the fever was no worse, he’d realised that he was reaching a shorter distance each time, that James was coming closer and closer, seeking Robbie in his sleep. And if it was rather like being sought out by your own personal furnace in your bed on the hottest night of the year, well, that had seemed a small price to pay, really.

He knows for sure that he must have done the right thing at last, bringing James into his bed last night, when he hears James come down the hall and he appears, still highly sleep-rumpled and swollen-jawed and flushed, wandering straight into the kitchen. He seems to be just seeking Robbie out again, before he lets himself or his waking faculties think the better of it. Robbie just gives him a grin and nods over towards the couch. James settles himself, yawning, rather cautiously, and that’s where he lands up spending most of the day. That whole impulse to hide away from Robbie seems, thankfully, to have finally evaporated.

***

As evening approaches, Robbie is about to call it a day on the paperwork that’s spread across his table. There’s a slightly fresher breeze making its way into the room at last, and James, who has been alternating music and some sort of recorded radio programmes that he has all stored up on his iPod, has settled on an audio documentary. He’s been persuaded that Robbie really doesn’t mind someone’s background music or radio while he works. Robbie had told him about how he’d successfully managed to study for OSPRE as a sergeant with Lyn blaring her music at teenage volume and that this was nothing against that. Far more peaceful. Robbie has been finding it all rather welcome, actually, the background noise of James’s own choices.

It’s been as pleasant a day as it can be when one of you has mumps and the other one an unrelenting stack of bureaucracy to deal with. Just the atmosphere, and the company whenever Robbie stopped for a break. James looks—not better from the mumps, as such, but at least not fighting it so hard. His fever might be breaking now, Robbie thinks. Although the only thing he even tries to eat is Laura’s soup and, from the way he automatically grimaces when he sees a bowl of that, it’s obviously sore to swallow it. But he looks that much more settled than yesterday, despite all his discomfort.

Now Robbie is just immersed in trying to phrase the conclusion of this report and—

“Were you talking about pigs yesterday?” James asks, very suddenly.

“Aye,” says Robbie still distracted.

Then something about the complete silence makes him raise his eyes to look across at James.

Lad looks absolutely bloody delighted. No other word for it. There are still times when even trying to follow the thought process of James Hathaway feels completely beyond Robbie Lewis.

***

They both half-watch the television that evening. Robbie supposes that James’s concentration isn’t up to much still. Robbie himself has other things to occupy his thoughts. Or one lanky, blond, feverish, highly complicated thing, to be precise. “Still very hot in that spare room, I reckon,” Robbie offers from his armchair as the evening lengthens, and the late summer dusk starts to descend at last. He has no idea if that room is hot. Neither of them have been in there all day, after all, except for James gathering his things before his shower. James, lying on the couch, raises his head immediately.

“Yeah?” he asks casually. Robbie doesn’t miss the real underlying question in his voice, though.

“Yeah,” he says firmly. “Must be on the wrong side of the building to get the breeze.”

The answering grin that he gets from James is thoroughly endearing, on his swollen, lopsided face. Robbie just grins right back. The bedrooms are, after all, on the same side of the building. If Robbie’s room is any cooler, that’s due to the larger window. But he wants to be very clear about why he’s offering this. He could just offer to change rooms, and let James sleep in peace. But he kind of knows that James will sleep better if he’s in the room with him, in the same bed.

And he’s thankful that he does in good conscience believe that, because, God, does he want James back in his bed with him.

***

James doesn’t think he’ll sleep at all tonight. Despite all the comfortable ease of the day, and the security of the night before, he hadn’t quite expected this just now. And now here they are, back in Robbie’s bed, both under a cool sheet again, and tonight feels a little bit—different.

Robbie has balanced himself on his side, his head propped up one elbow, gazing at him. James can feel it in even in the dark.

“You all right, James?” His voice is very gruff.

“Yes, sir,” James says automatically, thoroughly distracted by the way he can feel Robbie looking at him. He’s rapidly becoming unable to fight the feeling of building anticipation here.

“You can stop that. Stop calling me sir.”

“I feel like we’ve had this conversation before—” James says lightly. God, Robbie’s voice. His voice.

“Yeah, and then you reverted back to sir as soon as we stayed on in the job.” _Easier. Easier to have the distance. Not to be tempted to say Robbie aloud in that way, the way I say it in my head. Robbie._ “But now you need to stop it.”

“While I’m staying in your home? Because I’m—in your bed?”

“No, you just need to stop calling me sir. Please, James. Would you?”

“Okay…”

“I can hear you thinking it.”

“Okay—Robbie,” James tries.

“That’s better. Say it again.”

“Robbie,” says James obediently. “Why, though? Why now?”

“So I can do this.” And Robbie moves closer still, his intent suddenly, overwhelmingly, completely unmistakeable.

“Don’t kiss me.” God, of all the things he thought he’d never _say_ to Robbie. It’s so bloody _unfair._

Robbie stills, completely, right beside him. “ _No,_ ” says James, hurriedly. “I mean, I can’t kiss you back, I can’t kiss you properly…” It’s enough to give you a crisis of faith. Waiting all this time and then your jaw being so stiff and sore and uncooperative right at the very moment—

“Well,” mutters Robbie, “okay then, maybe not on your mouth….”

And then Robbie’s lips are brushing gently against James’s neck, then James’s temple, even, very softly, against James’s stiff jaw. It makes James gasp, and Robbie stops, his head motionless suddenly, touching against James’s shoulder. So James tilts his head towards him, asking, yearning for more. And the soft kisses start to pattern against his neck and face again. James brings up his hand, into Robbie’s hair, just letting his fingers move gently, very gently, so as not to stop the kisses and wherever they might fall next. It’s blissful. Arousing and dizzying and blissful.

When Robbie eventually stops, it comes to a rather stunned James that he should return the favour, should do something for Robbie—but before he can even get his thoughts in order, Robbie is lying back beside him, and has his arm around him, and is arranging James gently so he lands up lying back with his hot head resting back on Robbie’s shoulder. Robbie’s holding him closer even than yesterday, closer than last night, and James is once more being instructed to sleep, to rest.

But James is staring at the stars once more and they seem so very bright now that they’ll surely imprint their pinpricks of light on his eyelids if he shuts his eyes.

And then there’s suddenly something that he very badly needs to make clear to Robbie. “You know what you said, when Lyn was here? Asking me if I was settling? For something less?”

“I remember.”

“Well, it’s not less. Never less. You’re just everything I want. That’s what it is.”

“James.” Robbie's voice is rather husky in the dark. James brings a hand up to his cheek and rubs his knuckles gently, back and forth. This isn’t the easiest thing to say, but he can’t leave Robbie thinking this, that James is giving up on the chance of other things, for him.

“You’re all I’ve ever wanted, for ages,” he admits. “No-one else would have stood a chance. Not compared to you. You and your own unique way of nursing me. Healing things—well, you’re healing things that you don’t even know need healed. Making me more ready for this. This, with _you._ ” He hears how joyful his own voice sounds on those last words and he still doesn’t stop. “Showing me I don’t have to do anything just for you to be like that with me. Just because you work out what’s needed and just do it. Just because you’re you.”

The truth in his own words, his revelation, has emboldened him. He slides down and across, lying on his back beside Robbie, and reaches out an arm. And Robbie rolls over half on top of him, his own head finding James’s shoulder. Robbie tucks an arm right around James, holding him. “Not so good with words as you are,” Robbie says in slightly muffled tones. James brings a rather shaky hand up to the back of his head and lets his fingers start to play with Robbie’s hair.

***

Neither of them sleep for a while. They just lie there. Robbie is lying against James, open to all his lovely little caresses, too blissfully comfortable to say much. When James eventually speaks again, he sounds very dreamy at first, himself. And it's not a conversational topic that Robbie was expecting. “How come Innocent’s let you work from home for this, anyway? Me having the mumps?”

Robbie chokes back a laugh at the way his voice suddenly rises on the last word. The sheer indignation with which James says _mumps_ still never fails to get him. “This your idea of pillow talk, sergeant?” he asks. “Talking about bureaucracy and our chief super in bed? Cause we’re going to rethink the sleeping arrangements if it is.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“No, I wouldn’t, God help me,” Robbie agrees. He wouldn’t be giving this up in a hurry, the firm, utterly comforting warmth of James beneath him, against him. “Herself thinks I’m working from home and just dropping in on you. Although she was sort of—dubious about my nursing skills too.”

“She was?”

“Yeah. She looked sort of startled when I said I’d be keeping an eye on you and said “You, Robbie?” and then muttered something about how it was lucky that you only had the mumps then, she supposed. Laura knows that you’re here. Had to know where to send her hemlock soup, didn’t she? Speaking of which, we may need to get her to make you some more, there’s not a pick of flesh on you.”

“I haven’t lost that much weight in three days,” James demurs.

Robbie runs his hand briefly down James’s hip, eliciting a sudden, surprising, clench of James’s thigh muscles that makes Robbie grin to himself. Then he tucks his arm round under James again. “Maybe it’s that I never quite realised before how firm you were all over. Never had the chance to lie against you before, did I? Confirming all me suspicions.”

James begins to rub the fingers of one hand gently at the nape of Robbie’s neck, massaging ever so slowly. Christ, that’s nice. So nice that it’s making Robbie think about what would be even nicer—and an alarming thought suddenly hits him about this kissing-on-the-mouth prohibition.

“This is just about the mumps, isn’t it, James? The not-kissing on the mouth? It isn’t like a strange tantric thing that you’re into? You know like lots of foreplay and never—” He really wouldn’t put it past James.

“No, it’s the mumps. Just need to be able to kiss you back the first time. Properly. The way I want to.” Robbie really can’t mistake the longing in his voice.

“All right,” he says kindly, “Reckon I can wait a bit longer. We’ve got time now.”

James tightens his arm around him, letting Robbie feel his relief. “Not the worst things that can swell, actually,” he confides after a moment, “my glands.”

Robbie is alerted by something in his tone. “Oh, yeah?” Things. Things, plural. Huh. Puts James’s whole reaction to these mumps in a slightly different perspective.

“Yeah,” James says regretfully. “Laura even texted me to make sure that I knew. I mean, they seem okay to me but if you, as my nurse, really wanted to check… you were really very effective with your warm flannel massage on my swollen face…”

Robbie allows himself a grin in the dark. “Nice try. Let’s get you back to kissing first and then we’ll soon find out what develops after that, lad.”

James heaves a put-upon sigh but Robbie reckons that he seems happy enough really. “Oh, and actually, that’s not really what tantric—”

“All right,” Robbie breaks in hurriedly, before he can be treated to a speech on the origins of mystical Eastern philosophical practices. After years of experience, he can sense whenever there’s a lecture in the offing. “Still a shame I can’t kiss you properly to shut you up,” he mutters, settling himself in that bit closer to a very accommodating James for the night. “Can’t bloody wait for that bit."

***

The paperwork doesn’t stand a chance now.

Robbie is heartily relieved that it’s Saturday tomorrow and he’ll be able to give up the pretence. Although there is a deadline on this particular piece of work and the weekend won’t make it go away. But after last night, sleeping in James’s arms, he’s now acutely aware of the slightest movement from James, who is back on the couch this morning—and fidgeting about rather a lot, actually. Robbie raises his head and lets himself looks over at him properly. James is sitting gazing at him. Just waiting.

“What’s wrong, James?”

“I can’t get comfy,” James says. Very hopefully. Robbie can’t stop the grin breaking out across his face. He can’t believe James is actually letting himself ask for this. Bugger the monthly statistics. Robbie can always say that he caught the mumps off his sergeant.

“Liked that, the other day, did you, lad?” James nods. Still with that rather hopeful look. “All right, then.”

But, as he rises to go over to the couch, Robbie can already see that sitting the way that they had on that narrow single bed isn’t going to work. He sits down at the far end of the couch instead. “C’mon then, lie down.” James looks at him enquiringly. Robbie cocks his head at him in what he hopes is a slightly challenging way. James’s face lights up. Challenge accepted. Then he pulls his feet up on the couch and drops his head back into Robbie’s lap as if he still expects Robbie to change his mind if he doesn’t seize an opportunity the moment it’s offered. He lands up looking a little dizzy with the sudden movement.

Robbie starts to nurse his warm head to steady him.

Doesn’t James understand how much Robbie wants this too? How much restraint it’s taking for Robbie not to let his hands roam every time he touches the lad now? Or his mouth last night in bed. It’s bloody torture waiting for him to be better. But he doesn’t want to pressure him. He’s just fully appreciating now the extent of James’s frustration with the timing of the ruddy mumps. Because he’s sharing fully in it.

He runs his fingers through James’s hair and finds himself wanting to caress that poor still-swollen jaw. He’s not sure he has permission in broad daylight. But James is gazing up at him now, fully meeting Robbie's gaze, the shame and embarrassment around this all seemingly gone.

So Robbie begins to stroke around his jawline, ever so gently. James hasn’t managed to shave, of course. Well, how could anyone with a jawline like that? So there’s more than a hint of golden stubble now. Robbie rubs his thumb back and forth to feel the friction. Well, this is different. Very different. Robbie rather loses track of his thoughts, contemplating that, and only realises the shift in James’s expression when James’s hand comes up to Robbie’s own jaw, pushes around to the nape of Robbie’s neck, and James’s fingers start to flex upwards into Robbie’s hair. This—not kissing on the mouth thing—the longer they wait, the more creative Robbie’s fingers are becoming in their caresses around James’s cheeks, their ventures through James’s hair too. The more James looks at him—like that—without actually kissing him, the more his fingers play across the back of Robbie’s neck, that utterly tantalising pleasure—well, on the one hand, who even needs kissing?

Robbie gazes down at James. James regards him back in complete silence, all open, unflinching, blue-eyed gaze looking straight up and into Robbie.

Oh, Christ. On the other hand, Robbie needs kissing. He definitely does.

***

Robbie has his kitchen window, above the sink, open to the early Sunday morning quiet. He’s washing dishes and just looking out, remembering James out there in the garden with Matthew. Remembering their conversation after that, in this kitchen. And then what James had said about that, the other night. About wanting Robbie. That much.

Then there’s the sound of bare feet padding down the hall. Very rapidly. And before Robbie can even turn around, he’s grabbed from behind, and James’s head is coming over his shoulder, James is peppering kisses on the side of Robbie’s neck, along his jaw. Robbie turns to meet him, raising wet hands from the warm water. He just has time to process that James’s face has returned to normal and then—

Maybe these tantric people have the right idea after all.

Robbie has no idea if it’s all the waiting that has distilled this kiss into pure intensity. He’s not thinking too clearly beyond the pure sensations of James’s mouth on his own at last. Warm, reaching, searching, yearning. And Robbie, Robbie, now has his back actually pressed against the lip of his own kitchen sink early on a sunny Sunday morning because he’s being kissed so ardently, kissed in exactly the way he should have guessed that James, in all his intensity, _would_ kiss and he’s starting to take in dimly that his hand, on the back of James’s neck, moving upwards, into James’s hair, is shaking slightly. He automatically presses it in to James’s warm head to balance himself, to still it. James takes that as a sign to deepen the kiss, and he does so, thoroughly, very thoroughly. Bloody hell.

When they finally cease, Robbie gazes at James, pressed right up against him, and he can feel his own eyelids blinking rapidly at the lad. James, with a dazed look that has nothing to do with fever or mumps, also looks rather—joyous.

“Well, that was—worth waiting for,” Robbie hears his own voice murmur, eventually, in a rather inadequate understatement. “And you’ve a dab of suds in your hair, lad,” he adds.

“I’ve what?” James is rather confused at this.

“I was washing up,” Robbie explains, unnecessarily. Washing up, that’s what he’d been doing. On a Sunday morning. If this is the shape of things to come, if he’s going to be ambushed against his kitchen sink doing the ruddy washing up… then life is about to get bloody interesting. He sincerely hopes he can keep up. But—

“Washing up after what?” James enquires, sounding very interested.

“Just mugs from tea.” Christ, the lad can move from that, from kissing like that, to ordinary domesticity in the space of—ah, hold on. “You mean you’re actually hungry?”

“Mmm. Proper hungry.”

“Really? You want a proper breakfast? Like an omelette, maybe, or—”

“I’ll do them,” James says with rather undue haste Robbie feels. “You want one too? No offence, but the only reason I’ve survived on your cooking the last few days is a distinct lack of appetite on my part.”

“Oh, that’s gratitude for you, that is. All those yoghurts I served you. All those glasses of water.”

But Robbie is secretly delighted. And he’s even more delighted at the sight of James starting to move around his kitchen again now, right at home. Right at home with Robbie. Just the way he should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> James quotes from “Ode to a Nightingale” (John Keats)


End file.
